The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1887-11-12
STORY OF THE CRIME.
The Anarchists Association and Its
Tarrinin W4xL
Terrible Work.


AuaE- Spies and his seven CO. defendants
were leading members of the international
Arbeiter association. In the International
platform it is urged that "the present system
under which property is owned by individuals
should be destroyed, and that all capital which
has been produced by labor should be trans
formed into common property by force"
Eighty "groups" of this dangerous association
existed in the United States, chiefly at the
great industrial centres. Chicago alone having
seven. Only portion of the members were
armed. yet the number of this class in Chicago
exceeded 5000, every man of whom attended
regular military drills, had his own rifle and
revolver, and could obtain dynamite and
bombs for the asking. The unarmed members
of the groups were constantly in contact with
their armed brethren and in hearty sympathy
with their purposes and their principles.
This compact, we'll disciplined association
had for its organs three newspapers-the Ar
better Zeitung, the Alarm and the Anarchist.
Excepting handsome, youthful Louis Lingg,
who, though taking conspicuous part was a
mere acting agent, each of the eight Haymar-
ket defendants was directly connected with
one Of these papers.
August Spies keen, cynical Hessian,
with the subtle intellectual vigor of an Iago,
was editor-i chief of the Arbeiter The
jaunty dare devil little Texan Albert X. Par
sons, brother of Confederate general, presided
over the Alarm. At the head of the Anarchist
George Engel, another Hessan, but of coarse,
brutal type, exceeded the most bloodthirsty
uttersnces of his compeers. While Sam
Fielden, the Englishman, sulen looking, shaggy
and forbidding, but as an agitator simply vol
eanic, and Oscar Neebe, the polished, attrac-
tive German American organizer were more
especially concerned in other than journalistic
branches Of the propaganda. they were, never
theless, among the directors respectively of the
Alarm and the Arbeiter Zeitung. The gaunt
Bavarian Michael Schwab, was Spies's assist
ant editor, and his fellow -countryman, Adolph
Fischer, he of the poisoned dagger, was the
Arbeiter's head foreman.
During the months preceding the bomb
throwing the defendants were incessantly ac-
tive in agitating and organizing, in demon
strations" and experiments" Their speeches
and articles fairly bristled with impassioned
appeals for the laboring people TO provide
themselves with firearms and dynamite.
Specific instructions were given how to handle
and use the explosive, and how TO make bombs
and how to procure weapons. All this was
stated by the conspirators to be making ready
for the coming "social revolution" What was
meant by "socal revolution" was not left to
be vaguely inferred, nor was the time when it
was to be inaugurated dim uncertainty of
the future. The revolution" was frequently
defined in speech and writing as a sudden,
bloody, forcible destruction of the right of pri-
vate ownership Of property, then the bringing
about of state of society in which all property
should be held in common.
Incredible as it may seem, the avowed pur-
pose was to deluge the city in the blood of the
property owning classes, first destroying the
police and militia, who were hated as their
special champions. The period of confusion,
developing from the mammoth strikes of the
first of May, 1886, was definitely announced
months before as the time when the bolt
should fall. Pitiless Gs was this programme
and difficult as belief is that it ever was
contemplated by men, the facts as stated were
sbundantly proven in court.
Just one day before the time set for the
strikes Louis Lingg, the bomb maker, slipped
nto his lodgings heavy, suspicious looking
box, three feet in length. The box contained
a large invoice of dynamite. For many weeks
previous Lingg had been purchasing and ex-
. erimenting with dynamite as the paid agent of
one of the seven International groups
Next day, May |, the eight-hour strikes be-
gan IN earnest, and by nightfall, when the first
intelligent estimates were obtainable, 10000
men walked the streets idle. Sunday morning
the stufy little Bohemian Hall on Emma
street was crowded with members Of the Lehr
and Wehr Verein, an inner circle of the In
ternational. Detailed plans for the conflict
with the police were submitted by Engel and
listened to by Spies and his lieutenant. Fischer.
These plans were the ones followed almost to
the letter at the Haymarket, but the decision
was not reached at this meeting. Instead il
was determined to take action at another
gathering of the Lehr and Wehr in larger
hall and more central location, to be assembled
within twenty four hours. This was to be in
Greifs hall, Monday night, May g..
The Arbeiter Zeitung of which Spies and
Schwab were the editors and managers, called
together the armed men who were to engage in
this specific compact to murder. The Sunday
evening edition. published few hours after
the Bohemian hall meeting, contained this
cabalistlc legend :"Y-Komme Montag Abend."
(Y-Come Monday night.) This was the
summons to the armed sections to meet, as